Re: Unable to Activate Auto-Unlock

So i've installed the beta 2 on all of my devices, enabled 2 step factor auth etc... etc... Everything seems to be working but when i hit the checkbox to enable the service, i get stuck with a endless 'Turning On...' spiral and it never ends. If i close everything and come back, rehit the 'Allow your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac', i get the turning On... again forever.

With 2FA enabled and Beta 2 on my mac and Apple Watch When I go to turn on Auto Unlock it just says Turning on... with the endless spinning wheel have tried restarting and nothing has been working so far. Anyone else have any luck?

Same here. MacBook Pro Retina 15" Early 2013 and can't see the option....though the relase notes say it should work (The Auto Unlock feature is supported on 2013 and newer Macs). Filed a bug report and waiting for a reply. Cheers,

This did the trick for me. I was logged in with my original iCloud account email on my MacBook Pro and with my me.com address on my iPhone. I logged out of iCloud on my iPhone; then back in with the original ICloud email... all good. Thank you for the guidance.

It kept spinning for me and then asking for the password on my 2016 macbook until i closed the lid, then reopened it and now it works fine... I wonder if the the initial set up needs the clamshell to make the sync for the auto unlock to work.

I have now gotten it to work with both opening the clamshell as well as just going Apple Menu > Sleep (note that I have set the initial requirement for requiring the password to immediate from 5 minutes... if this is relaiable I am going to keep this setting and praise the Apple Gods because this is way more secure and convenient).

I, too, had everything set up correcty, but my Mac would not unlock via Watch when exiting from the screen saver. So, I clamshelled it shut, waited, and opened the screen. *poof* the unlock-via-Watch worked as advertised. So, I tried enabled the screensavere and moving the mouse. *THIS* time it worked. It's as if waking from sleep just once "jarred something loose."

So! Apparently logging off of iCloud on your mac and re-adding it seems to do the trick, you might have to reboot after to get rid of the 'Unable to connect to Apple Watch'. Everything works fine for me in the admin BUT the functionnality itself is not working. Waiting for Beta 3...

That would be strange, as 9to5Mac got it working, they made a video about it.

So there's gotta be a fix for this. I've tried so many things. Rebooting my iPhone, Apple Watch and Mac didn't solve the issue. Switching off and on the functionality on my Mac didn't fix it either. Last thing I tried was turning it off, rebooting my Mac and then turn it on again.

The thing is, it asks for some kind of pairing code (like you usually would need to pair a Bluetooth device). But I don't think that should happen, does it? Anyway, that message to fill in a pair code goes away after 10 seconds or so, like it automatically paired. Just curious what causes the issue not being able to unlock my Mac. It results in exactly the same as what you've got: it 'searches' but then prompts me with a password input box anyway..

I tried everything described in the thread without much luck. I could not get the checkbox in the settings to show up on the latest model of MacBook retina 13" and my watch was untrusted on the appleid. I got it working after unpairing and pairing my watch. After that the checkbox immediately showed up in the settings.

Just go to My Watch app, and tap on your watch at the top. Then click info button on the right and select Unpair Apple Watch. Then follow instructions on the screen. Unpairing and pairing, and restoring from backup might take a while, so be patient. It took probably 40 mins for me.

After the sync had been complete, the check box magically appreared in the settings and I was able to unlock my laptop without problems. Also my watch finally became a trusted device on the appleid site.

I saw the option for a while after installing on the MBP. Got the spinning wheel, but no functionality, it never went away. Then I "logged out of" iCloud, after that I do not even see the button anymore. 2FV and all that is active, I see all the devices in iCloud...

Could it be they have to be in the same WLAN for this to work? Or at least for the setup to work? I can not really test that at work because the WLAN is proxied and all that.... so no idea. How does this work anyway? Bluetooth alone can't be, that is not close enough to work reliably. Must be something else....

Nope, not working either. Just tried it (usually I'm on LAN at home, but tested it on WLAN. Unfortunately getting same result. Honestly I am thinking about doing a clean install, but it's so much trouble for just one feature. Especially if it is just some kind of weird bug...

Did that of course. Two factor authentication is on and actually works. Rebooted all of the devices (MacBook, Apple Watch and even iPhone). Getting same result constantly. Strange thing is that I'm getting this message on my Mac, asking to enter a passcode that should be showing up on my Watch. But that does not happen at all.

I was successful in activating it on my Macbook Pro Retina, but my late 2015 iMac 5K it activates but will not login and reverts to the standard password entry. Not sure what the issue is there. It breifly mentions something about pairing but goes away.

Same problem for me with my iMac Late 2013, after updating i see the checkbox and after update my 2 factors security, the box disapear and nothing. I tried ti reboot iPhone, iMac, Watch and disconnect- connect iCloud but nothing. I tried also reinstall the OS and same problem. I think i can wait a version 3 to use this feature

I had this feature working right after installing the latest beta on my Retina MB, late 2013. It was fast and working great. I followed the instructions in the release notes for OSX Sierra current beta to get it up and running. I tried the auto unlock feature at least a dozen times over the day and it worked just fine. This morning when I got near my MB, my Apple Watch started pinging me saying it was unlocking my MB even though I hadn't opened the lid. Then when I did open the lid, auto unlock failed to work. It tried (spinning circle, says "unlocking...") then the message and spinning circle disappeared as it reverted back to asking for my password. Password unlocked the MB. System prefs on the MB shows a check mark next to the auto unlock feature in the General tab. iPhone watch app shows my apple ID, and I'm using the 2FA per instructions. It simply refuses to work now. Rebooting the MB and watch had no effect, nor has logging on and off iCloud on the MB. Something changed, just not sure what. If I come up with a workaround, I'll post it.

IMHO, this feature is just unstable at least on my late 2013 MB. It began working again last night, then stopped. I changed nothing in between. I did a fresh install on a blank partition and it still persists. This morning auto lock worked several times and just before typing this message, it did not work. I cannot find a process that is interfering with auto lock.

i noticed that my machine name on the mac I was using was the same as another mac in my network. So I went to manage my Apple ID, and deleted the Mac from my list of approved devices. Then I signed out of iCloud on that Mac, and then renamed my machine name to something uniquen(in the sharing section of settings) and thensigned back into iCloud on the Mac.

Hi i litrally have had all of the Above Issues but i got it to work by 1 Changing the passcode on my apple watch from simple 4 digit and turned off unlock with iPhone on iPhone, 2 Re started apple watch, 3 Re Enabled unlock with iPhone now works Every time Hope this Helps for Everyone

I was able to solve the issue by turning off handoff on my MacBook and restarting it followed by turning off handoff in the watch app and restarting the phone. Once they were both up and running, I enabled handoff on the MacBook and then in the Apple Watch app.

When I went back to the Security and Privacy control panel to turn the unlock feature on, it actually took a second for the option to appear. Once it did, however, it worked as soon as I checked the box and put in my Mac password.

Apparently it can even be done with older iMacs and MacPros. I am about to try it with a 2010 iMac. They sell complete kits on eBay and other marketplaces to upgrade to a Wifi ac card (and newer bluetooth).

I had similar issue as well. All my devices were updated to latest version (developer 7 on 10.12). I would click on the checkbox to activate it and it spun and then after 5-10 minutes would give the error. I tried signing off from icloud, rebooting, even doing a fresh in stall of the OS - nothing seemed to work. So after a couple of days I was working on the laptop and casually went to try it again - and bam - it worked. So not sure why it worked then and not the times earlier. Either way it's a cool feature.

I wish in the future we'd get the ability to unlock our dekstop Mac's as well. Maybe not automatically, but once in range we can click something on the watch to unlock it.

Yer I just updated to this version this morning, and I have the latest Developer build for WatchOS3, iOS10.0.1 and macOS Sierra, and for some reason the ability to unlock my mac with my watch was turned off.

I tried to turn it on and nothing.

Tried:

Resetting network settings and bluetooth - no go

Signing out and back in to iCloud - no go

Restarting mac - no go

Restarting watch - no go

Failing reinstalling macOS or resetting the watch, nothing has worked so far.

Hopefully I'll be able to get it working tomorrow as another person stated they were able to get it working a few days later.

I keep getting the error "Your Mac was unable to communicate with your Apple Watch"

2FA is enabled, handoff works, with a locked watch I get the error message that I should unlock my watch and retry, so the devices do seem to communicate.

I tried pretty much everything mentioned here. Created a new user account on my mac, signed off and on to iCloud on all devices, unpaired and repaired my watch, even set it up as a new watch instead of restoring from backup. Turning handoff off and on again, disabling FileVault nothing worked for me so far.

/edit: I also reset Bluetooth on my Mac and cleared my iPhone network settings. No go.

I hit this problem too, and managed to sort it out after a fairly significant amount of screwing around and reaching dead ends.

I'm assuming what went screwy for me was that I had to enable 2FA before enabling the option, which went smoothly and authenticated my Macbook, but there's no prompt to authenticate the phone, it wasn't until I went into Settings > iCloud on my phone and waited 10 seconds or so that I was prompted to authenticate it with a code (which was then sent to my Macbook) Once I authenticated the phone I went into the settings in my watch app to check everything looked fine, and then restarted my watch (probably not necessary, but I did it anyway) and once it started back up, unlocking via the watch started working.

If you've turned on/toggled 2FA and haven't authenticated both your phone and your computer, go into the iCloud settings on each and enter the codes from the other when prompted. My guess is this problem is happening for at least some of you because you've recently turned on 2FA to use it, but haven't yet been through the 2FA song and dance on your phone, since only your Mac will have prompted you do it at the time.

Some of you seem to have taken desperate measures though, I guess you guys are out of luck until the 20th :/

Had same problem. I tried everything in this trail. In the end, Unpairing and Pairing again (long wait), fixed it. Apple Watch is still syncing / installing Apps from backup. However, after ALL that trouble, it's faster to type in my long password than what it takes Apple Watch to unlock the screen on its own. Bummer. Ended up the same as third party software out there a while ago.

I had the same issue with my iMac while my Macbook had no problem unlocking with the Apple Watch. My solution was to disable WiFi sharing on the iMac and it worked afterwards. It turns out you need both Bluetooth and WiFi enabled before the automatic unlock can work.

To be clear: If on your apple watch app from your iphone you toggle handoff off and then back on it should work. I was having this same issue but it was unclear from all these posts on where I should be turning off and on Handoff. Turns out I decided to try doing the same thing on the watch app. It worked!!

After reading various replies to your post, I followed several options, but the one thing that worked for me was to check my iCloud settings on my phone (using a restored image of Beta after upgrade from iphone 6 to 7 plus.) My watch had previously worked just fine to unlock my MacBook Air... same o/s was simply restored on the new phone.

Issue was under Settings-iCloud-Keychain, Find My iPhone and iCloud Backup, were all set to "Off." Tried to enable only Keychain on, but would not hold setting. Would turn on, but then off when backed out. Once Enabled all 3 settings, then they held in "On" position.

Went back to MacBook Air settings, Security, checked the "Allow Apple Watch to Unlock Mac," and BOOM! It popped right on, without issue. Then tested unlock and working flawlessly, as before.

Long story short, your issue may have to do with iCloud security settings, which makes sense, since this is a shared pool of security settings.

I had this problem after upgrading to a series 2 Apple Watch. Logging out of iCloud on my iPhone then logging back in fixed the issue (I was prompted to re-enter my Mac Book Pro password on the iPhone when logging back in).

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